


a negative times a negative

by brawltogethernow



Series: Neutral Element and Other Math Terms [2]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: (being Sapphic in Solitude™), Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Fantasy discrimination, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Prequel, incessant allusions to agatha/zeetha but it’s not happening, is this what sad boi hrs is, magic pixie dream boy incoming, overcoming disaffection and self hatred through friendship, role swap is between zeetha & gil but gil is living in the wastelands wrestling clanks at this point, the villain is toxic heteronormativity, zagreus is here to be sad and flirt with everyone and he’s mostly out of people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawltogethernow/pseuds/brawltogethernow
Summary: The Baron's son is a green-haired Lothario. Agatha instantly dislikes him.She will retract this at some point between meeting him and when they start being featured side by side in history books.-IN WHICH masc!Zeetha and Agatha take slightly longer to hit it off but they get there, Klaus's entire deal makes more sense if you remember he was the party straight man for years before becoming a tyrannical ruler, and ballistic coffee somehow leads to a trainer/trainee relationship.
Relationships: Agatha Heterodyne & Zeetha Daughter of Chump
Series: Neutral Element and Other Math Terms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765366
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	a negative times a negative

**Author's Note:**

> As always with this universe, there’s as little retread of the things that remain the same as canon as possible. Noted because with the first lab scene that's like... The plot and action.

The first thing that really struck Agatha about Zagreus Wulfenbach was his hair.

It was medium-short and very fluffy, except for two longer strands in front of his ears. It was also the exact color of young moss after a long rain.

 _Erk,_ thought Agatha. _Maybe it really is true what they say, and the Baron wanted an heir so badly he cooked one up in a vat…._

It almost made her want to like him— Her parents were constructs, after all. And people visibly created by mad science tended to be nicer on average in the face of her own...difficulties.

On the other hand, the Wulfenbachs had arrived two weeks early, which didn’t leave a flattering impression.

Their presence in the town had been preceded by a cloud of gossip. _Everyone_ heard when the Tyrant of Europa unveiled a secret child who nothing concrete was known about and immediately declared him heir to the Empire. This had been met with the intense skepticism it deserved. The Baron didn’t have any right to be _surprised_ , in Agatha’s opinion. People could only be _expected_ to be worried after he pulled a stunt like that.

But a disinterest in public opinion had always broadly described the Baron’s governing style. This was probably part of why people were always trying to assassinate him.

The man could do what he liked — Agatha was sure it was a nice life if you were sturdy enough to endure it — but it reflected poorly on the Baron’s son, as the person _benefiting_ from any ham-handed political jacknapery his father pulled.

The Wulfenbach heir’s eyes scanned the squeaky clean lab boredly, passing over Agatha. She averted her gaze anyway. (Meekness was a habit, and she hated it in herself, even though she knew she didn’t have a defensible reason to. There was nothing wrong with being meek. And she didn’t have any right to think, _But this isn’t me._ Plainly it _was._ )

He moved like some sort of caged big cat — gracefully loping, visibly bored, and casually predatory, with just a hint of discomfort evident in the high, stiff set of his shoulders, even as the rest of his bearing blared conflicting signals of aggressive disengagement to mask it. He was armed and his great swooshing coat didn't quite hide it, a dagger sheathed at each hip. His eyes roamed restlessly over the room. Casing the place. Taking in everything in the vicinity but not stopping on any person long enough to lock eyes and exchange any kind of regard, like Agatha and the professors were uncommonly dynamic scenery. The exception was the Baron, who Zagreus’ eyes darted back to periodically as if to keep up on what he was doing. The Baron didn’t look at him.

The overall effect was just as uncomfortable to be around as the Baron’s mountainous, commanding presence. They both seemed like they might ruin your life without noticing. It was just that the Baron would crush you unthinkingly underfoot, and his heir would twitch wrong and rend your belly open with sharp cat claws.

And in the end that was _exactly_ what they did.

Agatha would have liked to attribute missing the source of the tension broiling under the Baron’s visit to having an off day, but almost every day had been an off day since she was a child. She was having an off life. _She_ was off, and so she was the last to learn that:

\- She had been unwittingly abetting sedition, and

\- The Baron didn’t see that sedition as threatening enough to take it seriously.

“A routine observation of your affairs, only,” said the Baron.

“Why am I here for this, again?” muttered his heir.

“You never know when a routine walkaround will turn up something very interesting indeed,” said the Baron. “Pay attention, Zag.”

“Ugh,” said Zagreus.

Then the Baron _waltzed_ the lot of them around in a little circle to see how many bits of information he needed to drop before his son realized the Doctor had been hiding a hive engine.

He put it together pretty quickly. Not as quickly as Glassvitch, Merlot, and Beetle put together what the Baron was getting at, as they already knew the significance of each reference. But much faster than Agatha, who had never heard any of it before.

“ _Seriously?_ ” demanded Zagreus. “ _This_ is why you kept me away from the full reports on the town before coming here? If you were this determined to walk me through it in person, I’d better get to stab something.”

“I’m hoping to avoid that,” drawled the Baron. “But if it comes up, certainly.”

Merlot sensed the tide had turned against Beetle and turned on him as well, hissing with deep vitriol. “I should have known your _scheming_ would drag us all down! And for what! Now we’ll _all_ be vivisected, or chewed up by the beasts of Castle Heterodyne!” Glassvitch took a break from looking panicky and ill to make a ‘please simmer down’ gesture and kick him hard in the ankle. He ignored both, gnashing his teeth with such violence his plan of action might have been to bite his employer.

“Be _silent_ , Silas,” snapped Beetle, with all the pompous dignity one would expect of a man who had just been baited into dramatically pulling a lever he himself had ordered marked “DON’T TOUCH”.

“Well, at least you can direct _others_ towards wise courses of action,” observed the Baron drily.

“Is this a _joke_ to you?” Beetle spat, reeling on him. “Did you arrange all this just to toy with me? To impress upon us that we’re all so beneath your notice the most we can be good for is an — _object lesson?_ ” Here he turned to face Zagreus with a grit-toothed sneer, but continued to address the Baron. “And if you were going to build your own heir, Klaus, you could have at least been bothered to get the hair color right. You’ve certainly never cared what any of the rest of us think, but I’d have thought you were above _shoddiness_.”

The person in question narrowed his eyes at the Doctor. His hand twitched, fast but fractional, toward one of the knives at his hips. Beetle flinched.

Zagreus held his gaze another second, then let his slide away boredly. Like Doctor Beetle was a dull museum display, and the baron’s son didn’t really want to be in the museum in the first place. The effect on Beetle’s rage-stoked blood pressure was tangibly visible. It was possible the Baron’s son was applying creative problem-solving and trying to deal with the town tyrant by making him stroke out.

“If this charming diversion is out of the way,” said the Baron, who still seemed convinced that he was not walking them into a situation that could not be resolved peacefully. Doctor Beetle, by contrast, looked furious and ready to try his luck.

He turned away from Zagreus, trying to cover for losing that battle of wills, and shook his fist up at his father, instead. “This is not an exhibition for children, Klaus!”

“Oh?” drawled the Baron, raising one eyebrow. “What is it, then?” His eyes glimmered, all but daring Beetle to call it a revolt.

“A declaration of intent, if it must!” shouted the Doctor, and called his clanks.

Doctor Beetle should _not_ have tried his luck.

Beetle ripped off his button and threw it.

The Baron’s son darted forward, like he had been _waiting_ for this moment, with a knife in his hand. In two fluid flicks, wearing a snarl of concentration, he sliced the button in half, right along the line scored down the center, and then before the two pieces could fall batted them back where they’d come from. Then he watched their trajectory, stance ready, mouth snarling, and didn’t even _duck._

In size, the explosion was barely above campus laboratory standard. It made up for it in its implications.

The Baron’s son turned to the Baron, looking concerned. “Father,” he began, “I think —”

“You _idiot!_ ” the Baron interrupted. “You put yourself in danger! For some _student?_ You should have dodged _away_ from the device, not _toward_ it!”

“Wow, _thanks_ ,” muttered ‘some student’ at a quiet seethe. She crossed her arms and glared at the floor at their feet like _it_ was the problem as the Baron continued to shout at his son, who had stopped talking and now stared back with a sulkily defiant expression.

Every last one of them — _horrible._


End file.
